


Anonymous

by morningsound15



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, F/F, Jealousy, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, but a lot of alex & lena brotp action, dealing with a lot of negative emotions basically, i guess more than just squint, ooo boy it's a slow burn!, post identity reveal, some agentreign if you squint, ultimately supercorp, whole lotta miscommunication, you've been warned!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: The thing about Lena is, she’s always sort of toed the line between a slightly-unhealthy dependency on liquor and full-blown alcoholism. But now, with this latest betrayal, in light of this most recent news… well. At least it can be said that she never does things in part; she follows every lead, sees every task through to fruition, never gives up once she’s set her mind to something.Even her own self-destruction.**OR Lena and Alex become friends after accidentally attending the same Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Things get complicated.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Comments: 11
Kudos: 139





	Anonymous

**Author's Note:**

> Please please PLEASE read the tags and trigger warnings and proceed cautiously, friends; don’t enter into a fic that might trigger you or make you uncomfortable. We want safety + self-care with our angst please!
> 
> Also this got insanely long!!! It meanders and dips and it isn’t always plot-intensive but I hope you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.
> 
> **Trigger Warnings:** Discussions of alcohol use/abuse, alcoholism, and other negative coping strategies. Depression and thoughts of self-harm/purposefully destructive behaviour. Proceed cautiously, please.

________________

It used to be that Lena would see Supergirl in National City some every-third-day. Saving Lena’s life or zipping by her office window on her way to stop a fire downtown. She’d see her on the news or in the paper or landing softly on the balcony outside Lena’s apartment to check in on her after a particularly rough day of news/assassination attempts/lab research. When Lena couldn’t get her newest device to work properly or her security team had trapped some hired goon in the underground tunnels carrying enough C4 strapped to his body to take out an entire city block.

She never called Supergirl — that wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. (If it could even be considered a ‘relationship’. Can you _have_ a relationship with someone wherein 90% of your interactions involve some sort of risk to your life, her life, or the general continuation of life on Earth? Can such a strange, nebulous, unequal balance of power be reformed into something resembling normalcy? Can you have something like a friendship, something like a partnership, with a woman if you don’t even know her name?) But somehow, Supergirl always knew when to show up. When Lena’s life was at risk, when the world was ending, when she was coming off of her hardest days. Always, without fail, Supergirl would come find her. Like she had access to a personalized radio station tuned precisely to Lena’s emotional state, broadcasting across the whole of the city, and anytime it pinged _distress_ she would be there, red cape whipping in front of her body, hands braced against her hips like all of the cliché that she was.

For all the good she’s done Lena, all the numerous time she’s saved Lena’s life, Lena’s never particularly _liked_ Supergirl. Not Supergirl-the-public-persona, anyway. The Supergirl who gives impassioned speeches, talks criminals down from the brink, inspires millions, has her face plastered on magazine covers and cereal boxes… Lena’s never seen the appeal. Of course, she does her best to appease her, this woman who walks around with all the powers of God but with none of the omnipotence, because Lena might be a lot of things but an idiot is not one of them. She understands the value of superheroes in this economy. She may not share the murderous, obsessive, world-ending tendencies of her older brother, but she _also_ doesn’t share the same insipid, vapid hero-worship that the rest of the country seems to harbour towards anything preternatural. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer they always say, and Supergirl is neither her friend nor her enemy, not exactly either but somehow also both, and Lena understands better than anyone that this precarious situation they’ve found themselves in is perhaps one of the most dangerously unstable dalliances she’s ever allowed herself.

So, no; she’s never been particularly fond of _Supergirl._ But she allows her to continue her biweekly check-ins, her fly-bys, her visits late at night after the sun has long set. Not because she needs the extra protection. She doesn’t allow Supergirl near her because she thinks that she _needs_ her, or because Supergirl provides her with some kind of safeguard, or reassurances that she can’t get elsewhere. That would be ludicrous.

The truth, unfortunately, is much more embarrassing.

Lena would never admit it, not aloud, not to another person ( _certainly_ never to the caped crusader herself), but… there’s this moment, this moment that always comes during their interactions. Lena can never predict when it’s going to come about, nor could she track its causes or triggers (she’s tried on countless occasions to force the response, but her efforts have thus far proven fruitless). But it happens, without fail, nearly every time they see each other.

There’s a moment when the veneer wipes off, when the processing system shuts down. When Supergirl stops standing in front of her as the cultural icon she is, the super-powered being with abilities to rival those of the imagination, when she looks almost _human._ There’s a moment when her shoulders relax and her eyes soften (sometimes she smiles, a long wry grin that looks like relief washing over her), when her hands reach out to brush against Lena’s own.

_Are you sure you’re alright?_ she’ll ask, with none of the posturing Lena’s come to expect. _Do you need me to stay?_

_I’m fine,_ Lena promises, unable to tear her eyes away from the creature in front of her.

It only ever lasts for a moment, ephemeral and infuriating in the way it’s short-lived. Inevitably the walls shoot back up, the veil falls, and the woman disappears behind the mask once more.

But it’s intoxicating, that little hint of humanity. Lena aches for it, dreams of it, longs to see it again; she thinks about it constantly, of the implications those moments hold. She allows Supergirl to continue to check in on her, to stop by and visit even if she doesn’t have a reason to see Lena, because (though she’d never admit it) she’d do just about anything to see it happen again. To gather more data, employ more tests; anything to help her chip away at the mystery of just _who_ Supergirl is. Not her secret identity — truth be told, Lena has the very strong, sneaking suspicion that knowing _that_ particular secret would only make things worse for her — but her _humanity._

Who is she when she takes off the suit? What does she do, what does she _want?_ What does she love, what does she long for, what is she afraid of, what does she fight for? What are her motivations, and are they as pure and noble as she’s led everyone to believe? Is she fallible, corruptible? Does she have weaknesses like human beings, or is she above that, too?

It’s not an obsession — Lena would never allow it to be. She doesn’t allow herself the pedestrian pleasures of _obsessions,_ she doesn’t have the time for them. But it _is_ a curiosity, a nagging puzzle she can’t seem to solve, a riddle she can’t seem to crack.

She should have known, of course. Should have suspected. If she had taken a step back, allowed herself a little _distance_ she might have… she could have seen it coming. She thinks she could have saved herself from all of this. If only she had thought a little longer, trusted a little less easily.

She should have known. Chip away at something long enough and you won’t break it open — you’ll shatter it completely.

________________

When she was a child, Lena used to stare up at Lex in wonder, her older brother with his sharp eyes and sharper mind. He was the smartest person she’d ever met. Much smarter than Lena.

It wasn’t something she was allowed to forget. Not living in the Luthor household.

Lillian liked to take credit for Lena’s achievements, even as she dismissed her skills outright. When Lena was accepted to MIT at the age of 16, Lillian bragged loudly to her many friends, the other wives of successful businessmen and entrepreneurs with companies that generated billions of dollars in profits about how accomplished her children were going to be. At home though, her eyes glossed over and her eyebrow arched, unimpressed. _Well, it’s not Oxford, but I suppose it’s better than nothing._ Lena remembers feeling her face flush and burn with shame, her eyes downturned to her shoes at the reminder, once again, that she’d failed to live up to the impossible standards set by her older brother.

(Lex was the one to smile proudly at her, wrap his arms tight around her shoulders and give her a squeeze that actually felt _real. I’m proud of you, Lena,_ he said with eyes that seemed to see straight through her. Lena tried not to let the beaming hero-worship show too prominently on her face, but she thinks, with the hindsight she has now, that she must have been obvious. Turns out she’s never been able to hide anything from Lex.)

_Lex is training Lena to take over the R &D Department at LuthorCorp, you know, _Lillian bragged at Lena’s graduation party. _He’s always been so kind to his sister._ (The party, for the record, had an open bar and a guest list of 200 Very Important People from the business world, some local politicians, a few socialites, and other well-known celebrities whose only claim to fame came from their exorbitant — and largely unearned — wealth and exactly 0 of Lena’s classmates. Though she doubts she would have been able to come up with a single person to send an invitation to anyway, even _if_ Lillian had allowed it. She’d never really managed to make more than a few lasting acquaintances at any of her schools, which in the long-run was probably for the best.)

Lillian always held a special sort of disdain for her only daughter. But disdain didn’t do much for publicity, so she kept it mostly to herself whenever anyone of importance was around. She liked to credit herself for Lena’s achievements. She loved to remind Lena that _Without our family you would be nothing._

But it was never Lillian’s favour that Lena cared about. Her mother detested her from the moment she walked into her house; that was never a question. Lena gave up trying to appease her long ago.

Lex is another story entirely.

She’s never been able to fool him. Never, not once. He’s played her like an instrument her entire life. That’s all she’s ever been to him: a tool, an experiment. Something to pluck at and prod at, something to mould and shape to his desires on a whim. He’s never actually considered her a person, never loved her or worried about her or felt proud of her. She’s seen the diaries. Every one of his actions was carefully calculated in order to procure the desired response, and every response and reaction of hers he dutifully recorded. Like a scientist studying an alien species, trying to understand it not for empathy, but for the purposes of power and control. He honed his manipulative skills on her, learned how to dominate and subjugate by studying his only sister. And because of that he knows her, inside and out. He knows precisely how every word out of his mouth will make her feel, what it will make her want to do, how it will cut through to the soft, fleshy parts of her, the parts that have no armour and no defences. He knows the effect he has on her; he’s always known. It’s what’s kept him two steps ahead of her their entire lives; it’s the the thing that’s kept her _weak._

________________

_We both know, no matter how much you despise me, you’re not ruthless enough to pull that trigger._

She wonders, in the brief moment before she shoots him, if that’s ultimately what he wants. A quick death by bullet rather than a long, drawn-out battle with a terminal illness. She wonders if she’s the Brad Pitt to his Kevin Spacey, if this taunting of her strength, of her abilities, of her love and her ruthlessness is supposed to make her kill him, or make her crumble.

She shoots him twice, in the chest, and the shock that blooms over his face is almost worth it. She feels powerful, vindicated, _stronger than him_ for the first time in her life.

His hand comes away from his chest, dripping crimson. _You did it,_ he says, and he looks almost _proud_ of her, and Lena hates the way it makes her heart rate speed up a little, even now, at the thought that she might have done something to please him. _You killed me._

But Lex doesn’t lose battles. He doesn’t lose wars. He doesn’t lose clashes of wit and intelligence; not to anyone, and _certainly_ not to Lena.

She should have known, all this time, that he had an ace up his sleeve. She should have seen it coming, should have been able to predict it. After all, it’s one of the most important lessons he ever taught her. ( _Always have a contingency plan,_ a young Lex is telling her dutifully, squirreled away as they are in their treehouse, outside the reaches of Lionel and Lillian and their tutors and responsibilities. _Always have a backup. If you’re going to make it anywhere in life you need to be the smartest person in the room._ And Lena’s eyes are wide as she stares up at him, enraptured, too young to know any better. _You need to know every outcome, every secret._ He drops a hand to her shoulder and Lena beams, proud and loved and stupid. So, so stupid. _If you control the information, you control the people._ )

_Kara Danvers is Supergirl,_ his voice taunts, his eyes shining with mirth. He’s bleeding out on the ground in front of her, and Lena can’t look away from the screens behind him, playing loops and loops of security footage. Kara, in her cardigan and slacks, catching bullets as they fly towards her. Kara yanking her glasses off her face, her jaw set with steely determination as white hot energy shoots from her eyes, burning Red Daughter’s room without a moment’s hesitation.

By the time the film ends, Lex is already dead. The threat to her life, the threat to the world, dies with him. But he dies victorious after all. His final act on earth is tormenting, _punishing_ a sister who was never able to stop loving him, not fully, not even in the end.

Lena drops the gun to the ground next to her and promptly throws up.

.

.

.

Back at her office, Lena’s hands shake as she lifts her glass of whiskey to her lips. Her eyes are far-away and unfocused. Her emotions seem to vacillate between horror, fury, and devastation. She sheds no tears.

There’s a photo on her desk, a framed shot of her and Alex, arms wrapped tight around Kara. Kara had presented it to her in a simple, cheap frame during one of her weekly game nights after a particularly busy month in Lena’s schedule where she had to cancel plans on several occasions. Kara offered her the picture with a laugh and a smile. _So you won’t forget what we look like!_ she’d said.

Her fingers tremble. She might be drunker than she originally thought.

It had seemed like such a trivial gift, at the time. Lena was raised to equate wealth with admiration and respect, and she can honestly say she’s never received a present from someone that cost so little. But even though the frame is cheap and simple, made of plastic simply painted like wood, it felt heavy in her hands when she grasped it. It weighs more than it should and she could feel the pressure of it, the scope of it, and when she saw Kara’s easy smile she felt something in her chest strain and ache and she hadn’t been able to stop staring at it for the rest of the night.

Of course that was then. This is now.

She brings her tumbler down on top of the picture, but she must misjudge the force of it, because as crystal hits glass, something shatters.

She looks down. A web of cracks stretches out over the picture. Kara’s smiling face, Alex’s grin, are almost totally obscured. Lena looks at her own image, smiling up at her with all the ignorance and joy of someone who’s been told all her life that she’s nothing, that she’s worthless, that she’s unlovable, that she doesn’t belong— _finally_ finding a place where she _does_ belong, a group of people who _do_ want her around. Arms warped around some of the first real friends she’d ever had in her life, she grins towards the camera, completely oblivious to the deception around her.

Lena has to laugh. She shoves the now-broken item away from her with disgust.

_What a fool._

________________

Lena takes it rather poorly. To put it simply.

And what makes matters even worse is that the timing of all of this really couldn’t be poorer. She and James broke up because it turns out they hadn’t really had all that much in common, except for their mutual devotion to Kara, and that _certainly_ wasn’t enough to sustain a relationship. She’s been receiving increasingly worrying death threats ever since she came out in support of alien amnesty; ever since she started diverting L-Corp funds to help with refugee resettlement programs, tech start-ups with alien founders, and the creation of the nation’s first alien-friendly and alien-centric hospital. The L-Corp Board of Directors has been threatening her with all manner of backlash — everything from coups to oustings to blatant attempts to steal her own company out from under her. Investors have been pulling out — not many, not all, but enough to have her a little concerned. Her enemies are breathing down her neck as hard as ever, only this time she’s more alone than she’s been in years — possibly since before Lex lost his mind.

It’s like suddenly she’s a child again, isolated and disparaged and shunned again. Every person she meets is a potential enemy; every kind face is a face she can’t trust. She finds herself eyeing strangers in bars, in coffee shops, in restaurants and cars all with suspicion. Reporters who call her for interviews are wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing, trying to get close to her, get her to open up and _trust_ them so they can take advantage of her, learn from her, find out all of her most closely-held secrets. (That’s what Kara had been doing, right? That was the whole reason for all of this. Keep your friends close but your enemies closer, and who’s a greater enemy to a Super than a Luthor?)

Her best friend in the city — maybe even in the entire _world_ — gone. The friends she’s made through her, also gone. Alex, Winn, James (God, even _James_ ) — they all lied to her. They all _knew,_ and yet they said _nothing._ For _years._ Let her go about playing a mad fool in front of them, never saying a word.

At least the others have the good judgment to stay the hell away from her. At least they have the common sense to know that she doesn’t want to speak to them, doesn’t want to hear more of their lies, more of their excuses; that she doesn’t want to see faces or hear their _voices_ or _think_ about them at all.

At least _they_ understand.

But not Kara. Of course not; she’s never been the type. Lena isn’t even _surprised_.

At first, Kara just tries calling her, but Lena ignores every ring. She leaves rambling messages on Lena’s voicemail that Lena doesn’t listen to, sends strings of text messages that Lena doesn’t read. When after a few days these efforts prove futile, she escalates. She tries to drop by Lena’s office, but Lena’s had her security clearance revoked almost overnight, so she’s no longer allowed upstairs. She doesn’t try to muscle her way past security (Lena thinks even _she_ has her limits, when it comes to what amount of brute force she’s willing to exert in a public setting while wearing the identity of her alter-ego). But she still doesn’t learn. Can’t seem to take the hint at all.

She comes by Lena’s apartment one night. Lena sees her, hovering outside the bedroom window in all her red and blue caped glory. She knocks on the window, softly. It’s the worst of the lot, the worst of all her attempted efforts to reach her, and absolutely _cruel_ in its execution because now Lena has no choice _but_ to see her, no choice but to turn her attention to the woman floating outside, her hair whipping across her face in the breeze. It’s selfish and mean-spirited; it makes Lena burn with indignation, the fact that even now, after _everything,_ she won’t just take the goddamn hint and leave her _alone_. Indignant that she’s taken _this_ from her, too. Indignant that it seems Lena truly has no power or control left in her life because maybe she’s never had any in the first place. Indignant because Supergirl has always done what _she_ wanted, what _she_ thought was best, no matter what the consequences or casualties, and it seems Lena is no exception to that rule, and Lena _burns_ with the knowledge. She thinks that maybe she’ll be forced to see Supergirl every day for the rest of her life, regardless of want or desire or wish, and Lena’s stomach wrenches violently at the thought. The sight of her makes Lena _ill_ , desperately ill. Which is maybe why she claims she’s not responsible for what she does next.

She takes her glass of whiskey (still full nearly to the brim) and chucks it at her window. It doesn’t break the glass, of course — all the windows in her apartment are bulletproof, because she can’t take enough precautions these days. Still, it shatters against the wall and Kara—no, not Kara, _Supergirl_ —recoils, like she’s actually been hit. Lena turns her back on the window and buries her face in her pillow and cries, huge racking sobs that shake her entire body. She doesn’t turn towards the window, doesn’t look to see how long Supergirl lingers, watching her, if she lingers at all. But when she wakes up the next morning, her makeup stained down her cheeks and her pillow dyed a blotchy black-and-purple, Supergirl is gone.

She doesn’t make a second appearance.

________________

The thing about Lena is, she’s always sort of toed the line between a slightly-unhealthy dependency on liquor and full-blown alcoholism. But now, with this latest betrayal, in light of this most recent news… well. At least it can be said that she never does things in part; she follows every lead, sees every task through to fruition, never gives up once she’s set her mind to something.

Even her own self-destruction.

At first it’s just a few bad nights. She sits up in her apartment’s living room — the room that’s been perfectly designed to value aesthetics over comfort; cold and austere, with white couches and white rugs and white floors and white countertops, an altogether entirely unhomely place (her home is much like her, in that regard: cold, unfeeling, pristine, uninhabited). She stares down at her hands, her knuckles, the tips of her fingers gone grey with exhaustion, or maybe dehydration, or maybe the cold, or maybe nothing at all. She sits up in this room she hadn’t decorated, in this home she doesn’t particularly care for, slowly and steadily working her way through a bottle of wine, then a few tumblers of scotch, gazing unseeing out onto the city. She stumbles into bed, fully-clothed, stocking feet rubbing soft silk sheets.

She tries not to look at her phone, at the emptiness on it. No texts, no calls — not for days, now. She’s alone again, abandoned again, left out in the cold without anyone to pull her free. She can’t even tell _Sam_ what’s going on, can’t even confide in the one friend she has left, because telling her would mean betraying Kara’s confidence. And God, even after _everything,_ she can’t seem to make herself do that. She shuts her eyes tight, screws them closed and tries not to cry. After her third morning in a row waking up with ruined pillowcases, she invests in some waterproof mascara.

________________

Almost before she can blink, a few bad nights turn into a few bad weeks.

Her morning hangovers have become nearly unbearable. The resulting headaches are terrible, sharp ice that pounds, stabs white-hot through her brain, from her temples through her teeth and down her neck, making her vision go spotty at the edges. Her stomach pains are so pronounced that she has trouble eating — the smell of any type of food (hot or cold, sweet or savoury), has her blanching and reaching for the nearest waste basket. And a woman of her station can’t be seen vomiting into the nearest receptacle at the first hint of food — people will begin to grow suspicious, spread rumours that she’s ill or weak-willed or suffering from an eating disorder or, God forbid, _pregnant._ It would tank L-Corp’s already shakily-climbing stock prices, sow distrust in her leadership and her ability to effectively carry out her position. There would be insurrection amongst her board members (a good 60% of whom still don’t believe she should have been put in charge of her company in the first place, and who are looking for any opportunity to swoop in and deem her unfit for the job), a destabilization of public morale, an inevitable downturn in market share.

No. That simply won’t do.

She suffers through the headaches and the hangovers for a surprisingly long amount of time — several painful, nauseous weeks — before she begins to employ the ‘hair of the dog’ treatment to compensate. A Bloody Mary at breakfast, a glass of wine or two at lunch, a late-afternoon aperitif in her office, two hefty cocktails at dinner, another two glasses of wine for desert, and then more scotch when she finally returns home. Lena gets to enjoy a pleasant buzz throughout the day, her evening drinking is heavy enough to effectively knock her unconscious while allowing little room for dreams, and her morning drinking helps to compensate for the inevitable hangover. She’s never sloppy, of course. She’s a Luthor; she’s been trained in how to handle her liquor since she was 14. She never loses control, never over-indulges in public, never allows her hands to tremble or her companions to smell the alcohol on her breath (she keeps a tin of _Altoids_ in her purse, car, desk, bedside table, and in Jess’s desk, too; just in case). The key is to never dine with the same person for more than one meal per day. Each questioning look can be easily laughed off. “Oh, it just felt like that kind of rainy day!” or “After that shareholder meeting, you’re telling me you _don’t_ need a drink?” or “Sunday morning brunches were designed for mimosas!”

It’s an easy rule to maintain. She doesn’t have reason to dine with other people very often, these days. Sam has been so busy with her part of the company workings, traveling to conferences or to meet with investors most weekends on top of trying to juggle Ruby and everything that comes along with motherhood, and she’s really the only person Lena engages with socially, now. And Lena is nothing if not a master of lies, concealment, misdirection and misrepresentation. Sam isn’t hard to fool. And the only other person who may have run the risk of catching on to her scheme—

But that’s inconsequential, now. Best not to dwell on it.

Lena eats most of her meals alone, and the few which _do_ involve other people usually entail morning meet-ups with Sam before work or else some fancy, expensive client or partner meeting she has to sit through at one of the 18 appropriately upscale restaurants in National City that have been properly vetted and approved for L-Corp’s business dealings. And no one Lena meets with — neither clients nor subordinates nor potential investors nor board members — would ever _dream_ of suggesting that Lex Luthor’s younger sister may have a drinking problem. Not if they value their careers and/or their personal wealth. (Lena Luthor is not the kind of woman to make an enemy of. She prides herself on that reputation.)

Also, she believes this goes without saying, but: she absolutely does _not_ have a drinking problem. Enjoying a few drinks here and there does not constitute a _problem_. She never drinks to over-indulgence (depending on what your definition of ‘over-indulgence’ is; Lena’s is liberal), never allows her consumption of alcohol to impede her daily life (depending on what your definition of ‘impede’ is; again, Lena’s definition is liberal). Therefore, she does not have a drinking problem. She’s having a few bad weeks, is all. A few difficult, heart-breaking, confusing weeks of loneliness and isolation and betrayal and—

She doesn’t like to think about that. Her hands start to tremble if she does. She pours herself another drink and doesn’t dwell.

________________

It doesn’t stop. She expected it to stop, expected the pain to fade away with the benefit of time and space and alcohol and her own rather herculean ability to compartmentalize ( _boxes,_ she had once described her mind as a series of _boxes. Take your feelings and shove them into itty bitty boxes and shove those boxes way deep down until you forget you even had feelings in the first place_ ). She expected her heart to stop lurching every time she walks past a newspaper stand with Supergirl’s face on the cover of some magazine, posing strong with hands on hips and shoulders pushed back, or hoisting an eighteen-wheeler above her head like it’s nothing. Expected to stop feeling so miserably sorry with herself with every Friday night that comes and goes, a game night taking place somewhere across the city to which she is no longer invited.

A few bad weeks turn into a few bad months. It happens so slowly; she almost doesn’t even notice it.

________________

Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn’t just _stop_ because Lena’s having a few bad weeks, or a few bad months. The world continues to turn. An alien tries to destroy the city, and Supergirl stops him. The sun rises, the sun sets, Lena runs her company, goes to meetings, stocks climb and then they fall. Cadmus makes a few half-hearted robbery attempts and some light domestic terrorism, and Supergirl hauls in goons like she’s being paid per head. Anti-alien protestors deface public spaces, spray paint monuments, vandalize public parks. Low-tier villainy, really. They put out press releases and try to goad politicians into public confrontations, try to goad _Lena_ into public confrontations. She gets used to dodging paparazzi everywhere she goes — leaving her apartment, leaving her office, leaving the _gym,_ even.

All variations of the same theme:

“Ms. Luthor! Ms. Luthor! Any response to Supergirl’s recent comments about the continued threat of Cadmus?”

Lena grits her teeth and keeps her head down. With her large sunglasses on her face it’s impossible to see her eyes, her expression. She keeps walking. “No comment.”

There are microphones and recorders shoved in her face, the flash of cameras going off as greedy, parasitic men dressed in cargo shorts invade her personal space and violate her privacy. The mobs are worse now than they were when Lex was first arrested. Lena can’t believe she’s thinking back to that time with _longing._

“Do you have anything to say about the uptick in anti-alien protests around the city?”

“Has your mother tried to get you to join Cadmus?”

Lena’s mouth twitches down. Tony is doing his best to clear a path for her from the door to the car, but it’s like trying to swim upstream against a heavy current. They can barely move.

“Are you helping Supergirl take down the Agents of Liberty?”

“Do you have anything to say about the damage Supergirl causes during her so-called ‘heroics’? How is National City meant to pay for all the repairs? Should Supergirl be held accountable?”

Lena whips her head towards the closest reporter, the one blocking her path directly. She has a smug look on her face and a tape recorder in-hand, and she stares at Lena like she’s trying to see through her soul. Lena doesn’t know what to make of her, and finds herself gripped with genuine _fear_ for the first time in weeks. “Supergirl makes her own decisions,” she finally answers carefully. Tony has noticed by now that Lena’s fallen behind him, and she can see his large form working its way through the crowd. “I’m sure I know nothing of her process.” Tony grabs her by the upper arm and practically _hauls_ her away from the confrontation.

They continue to shout at her as she’s pulled away. “Are you still angry at Supergirl for arresting your mother?”

“Are you still assisting Supergirl with her government contracts?”

Lena fights the urge to put a hand to her temple. Her headache is splitting, pounding, paralyzing. She can barely think. The bright strobe of flashing cameras is doing nothing to alleviate the pressure building inside her skull. Tony finally makes it to the door and yanks it open for her. Reporters continue to shout questions at her as she clambers into the backseat.

“Is it true she killed your brother?”

Lena freezes. It’s the same woman as before, the woman from the middle of the crowd, the reporter with the tape recorder and the smug look. Only her face isn’t so smug, now. She looks directly into Lena’s eyes. She looks angry.

Lena stares right back at her. She doesn’t _look_ like one of Lex’s goons, but then again, neither had Eve. Perhaps only a fan, an admirer or his work. Perhaps a bigot, or a zealot, trying to latch onto whatever controversy is currently in vogue in order to gain reactionary clout.

Right before Lena slams the door in her face she says, as clearly as possible: “No comment.”

________________

Ruby has soccer games every Saturday and every-other Sunday in the summer. It only takes Sam a couple months to convince Lena to make an appearance (and truthfully it was more Ruby who did the convincing than Sam).

Lena shows up at Sam’s house at 9 a.m. on the dot on the morning of Ruby’s game and Sam takes one look at her before shaking her head. “Absolutely not,” she says, reaching out and grabbing Lena’s wrist before yanking her inside. “You cannot show up to a child’s sports game dressed like you’re doing a _Vogue_ shoot, Lena. You can’t.”

Lena blinks and looks down at her outfit. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed? I wore sandals!”

Sam laughs right in her face. At Lena’s disgruntled expression she quickly apologizes. “Sorry, sorry. I know you don’t know any better. But sandals and an $800 dress does not a casual outfit make. I thought I told you to dress _light_.”

“This _is_ dressing light.”

Sam sighs. “I’m sure I have something that’ll fit you. Upstairs, you know where my room is. Workout stuff is in the closet, top drawer.”

“I’m not going to wear _workout clothes._ I’m not exercising.” A brief pause. “ _Am_ I exercising?”

“Believe me, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable in leggings and sneakers. You’re gonna stick out like a sore thumb dressed like this.” Sam pauses for a moment. “Well, you always stick out, but this time it won’t be in a good way.”

“Seriously?”

Sam nods, pushing her towards the stairs. “Seriously. You’re gonna thank me later!”

Lena walks down the stairs ten minutes later dressed in leggings, a t-shirt, trainers, and a light vest. Sam laughs lightly when she sees her and tugs on the vest zipper, pulling it from half-zipped to fully open. “Very REI chic,” she teases.

Lena smacks her hand away. “I feel ridiculous.”

“You look great. Ruby! Come tell Lena she looks great!”

Ruby pokes her head around the kitchen door. “You look great, Lena!”

No offense intended towards Ruby, but Lena’s never exactly trusted the fashion opinions of teenagers. “I look like a soccer mom.”

Sam bops her lightly on the nose. “ _Exactly._ You’ll fit right in!”

.

.

.

Still, of course, she’s Lena Luthor, and nothing for her can be easy; she does _not_ ‘fit right in’. In fact, when they show up to Ruby’s game with two folding chairs and a cooler carried between them, they get a _lot_ of strange looks from the other parents. Lena looks around at them, meeting glares with bemusement. “Do you have a lot of enemies on the PTA?” she mumbles as they’re setting up their little watching area. “I’m used to glares from bystanders but this time they don’t seem to be glaring at just me. And we aren’t in a boardroom somewhere, so unless all of these moms have strangely vitriolic anti-alien beliefs…” Lena trails off, looking for Sam to fill in the gaps.

Sam just shrugs. She tries her best to look unbothered but Lena knows that she is. Bothered, that is. Sam’s never been a very good liar. “Usually I bring Alex to these games. I guess they think I’m some sort of lesbian floozy. Two things they hate rolled up into one; gay people and sexual promiscuity.”

Lena turns to her abruptly and blinks a few times. Her mouth moves but no words come out for a few seconds. “You and Alex are—?”

“No,” Sam clears her throat. There’s a light flush on her cheeks that Lena makes note of but doesn’t comment on. “No, we aren’t. But you know… _gossip_.”

“That’s not fair.”

“They’re a bunch of suburban soccer moms. I don’t think they really care about _fair._ ” Lena looks at the group of women around them. Most are ignoring them, but a few shoot them furtive glances between painfully obvious whispers. Lena feels her anger notch up. “And you know,” Sam continues like she hasn’t noticed the talking and the staring, “it’s hard to be friends with other parents. We aren’t really _peers._ As soon as it comes up how young I am…” She shakes her head. “There’s judgment. Obviously. Teen moms are kind of exotic, and not in the good way.”

“That’s horrible. They don’t even _know_ you.”

Sam shrugs again. “I don’t need them to know me. I’m young, I’m hot, I have an awesome daughter. They can think what they want.”

“Still.”

Sam nods, looking contemplative. Maybe even little sad. “Still,” she agrees. “Would have been nice not to have to explain slut-shaming to my thirteen-year-old daughter. But sometimes you don’t really have a choice with these things.” Lena stares at her, mouth agog. Sam waves her off. “It’s fine, it’s nothing. Just some girls at school saying horrible things to her. It doesn’t bother me; I just wish they’d leave Ruby out of it. She’s a kid, y’know? She doesn’t deserve that.”

Lena wishes she had some response to that. She thinks she might have been able to provide some sort of comfort, were it not 11 a.m. on a Saturday morning and were she not completely clueless about her solving own problems, too. She doesn’t think she has the emotional capacity at the moment to both hold herself together and lift Sam up. Not that Sam’s asking anything of her, of course. But she doesn’t like the selfish feeling of being so wrapped up in her own head and her own issues that she can’t help a friend when she so clearly needs it. And Lena’s not going to pretend that she’s a _good_ friend — she’s had so few chances to figure out _what_ kind of friend she is — but she’s a _kind_ friend, or she tries to be, and she’s _honest,_ and Sam’s been there for her _with_ her for so long that she _wants_ to be able to do more. She wishes her thoughts were less jumbled her mind was clearer her anger was more direct more focused she wishes… she _wishes_ …

Her head feels clammy, soupy. She thinks about the nip of Bailey’s she snuck into her coffee at Sam’s (and then again, and then again) and Lena realizes with something like shame that she’s rather drunk for a Saturday morning child’s soccer game. With the way Sam’s looking at her, eyes a mixture of sad and resigned, she actually sort of wishes she wasn’t.

________________

She hears about the bomb threat on her way to work. Not from an employee, or someone from her security detail. Lena is going to have to have a _very_ stern discussion with her head of security after this is all over, refine some of the sketchier points on their emergency plan, because she should _not_ hear about bomb threats at _her own hospital_ from the _local radio._

> **[Female Voice]:** _And we have some breaking news coming in from the north-western part of National City. Early this morning the NCPD dispatched a bomb squad to the Hospital for Aliens of National City. Hundreds were evacuated by 8 a.m., but Chief of Police Roger O’Donoghue assures us the situation is under control._
> 
> **[Male Voice]: _Yes, we responded to a bomb threat at the HANC at 0700 hours this morning. Luckily, we got all the patients out and uh… there are no injuries or casualties to report at this time. The perimeter is secured and we’re monitoring the situation._**
> 
> **[Female Voice]:** _Thank you, Chief O’Donoghue. We’ll keep you updated on any new developments in this story as the morning progress. Meanwhile, the NCPD are encouraging commuters to steer clear of the area between 9 th and 11th and E and H Streets. Once again, please avoid driving in the vicinity of 9th and 11th and E and H Streets. Officers on the ground will be redirecting traffic towards detours until the threat has been eliminated._

Lena’s heart rate has never been higher. Something clenches tight in her chest and stomach and she feels for a moment that she can’t breathe. “Tony,” she says carefully, already anxious.

“Already on the way, ma’am.”

Obviously, Supergirl is there. Lena hadn’t thought about the fact that she would be there. She should have expected it, because whenever there’s an attack involving aliens in National City Supergirl is sure to be right around the corner, but still, Lena steps out of her car and immediately finds herself wrong-footed, her heels slipping awkwardly on the rain-soaked pavement. Her eyes widen, unbidden, and she tightens her hands into fists to stop Supergirl from seeing them shake. She’s glad she thought to run a brush through her hair this morning, at least.

Supergirl, like she has a radio tuned especially to a Lena-specific channel, notices her right away. Their eyes meet across the crowded scene, between cops and EMTs and patients huddled together under blankets, over the tops of reporters’ microphones and photographers’ cameras, through the mist and the light sheen of rain that’s still falling.

Their eyes meet and, God, Lena can’t _do this._ She can’t do this. She can’t—

Supergirl is suddenly right in front of her. “Ms. Luthor.” It’s not exactly a greeting, and it’s terrible in its lack of familiarity, its lack of confidence. Supergirl is looking at her with eyes that say too much, far too much for this busy street corner. There are _cameras_ pointed their direction, for God’s sake. How can a public figure with Supergirl’s notoriety be so bad at hiding how she feels?

“Supergirl.” She can’t do this. She _can’t._ She can’t stand here across from Supergirl and look up into her face and _not_ see Kara staring back at her, looking for all the world like Lena’s just kicked her puppy. Eyes open and expressive, mouth pressed into a worried line as she scans Lena’s face and body, drinking her in. They haven’t seen each other in person in nearly 3 months. Lena feels like she might collapse at any moment. “You have the situation under control, I see?”

“I… yes. We found the bomb. Everyone is safe, the scene is clear.”

Lena nods and doesn’t look at her, surveys the scene around them instead. Now that she’s looking more carefully she can see that no one is injured. There are a few children shivering next to their parents, some clearly non-human figures hunched with blankets pulled over their heads, hiding their faces from the public eye, but no one’s hurt. EMTs are traveling through the crowd with coffee, and what looks like doughnuts, laying calming hands on shaking shoulders. Not an ideal way to spend a Tuesday morning, but not anything catastrophic. Lena takes a breath, and it feels like the first one she’s had in days. “Where was it?” she finally asks quietly. She still doesn’t look at her.

“Sorry?”

“The bomb.” She finally turns her attention back to Supergirl. She hasn’t stopped staring at Lena, not once since she walked up. _God, Kara,_ she thinks, helplessly, to herself. _Don’t do this to me._ “Where was the bomb?” She hesitates, and Lena’s heart stops beating. “ _Supergirl_ ,” Lena says quieter, and if she weren’t so busy trying to stop herself from a full-blown panic attack right now she might have noticed the way Supergirl’s face pales at the sound of her own name. “Where was the bomb?”

Supergirl swallows. “In the Children’s Wing.”

Lena wobbles where she stands. She has a brief, startling moment of looking down at her own feet, and she has just enough wherewithal to be moderately surprised that the ground seems to be rushing up at her before everything goes black.

.

.

.

“—thought you were giving her space?”

“She fainted in my _arms_ , Alex. What was I supposed to do?”

“Take her to a hospital? _Any_ hospital? The hospital you were standing _in front of_ when she fainted, maybe?”

“I didn’t know what was wrong! There could have been a… a gas attack, or something. Poison!”

“And she was the _only_ one affected?”

“I just wanted to make sure she was _okay_. That isn’t a crime.”

A long, deep sigh. “I’m worried you don’t know what you’re doing here. She looks—”

“She’s gone through a lot recently,” Kara cuts her off, defensive.

“She looks _rough,_ Kara. Are you really prepared to deal with this? What you’ve done and what—”

Lena can’t listen to anymore of this. She can’t. She’s going to lose her mind.

She groans, loudly and conspicuously from what she now recognizes as her hospital bed. The hushed conversation from the hallway ceases immediately. There are no approaching footsteps, so Lena figures its safe to move around. No one seems likely to barge in on her at any moment. She digs in her purse for her phone, but immediately notices something is missing. Her head shoots up, her eyes darting around the room, looking for—

“I took your flask.” Alex’s voice startles her so much that she yelps and drops her bag back onto the bed. She whips around, hand clutched to her heart. Alex is just standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame like she doesn’t have a care in the world. She has a new haircut. It looks good, Lena can’t help but notice; very butch, very capable. In another life, maybe Lena would have even been attracted to her. If they were strangers who met in some dingy dive bar out in the middle of nowhere where no one knew who Lena Luthor was, she might even have entertained the idea of letting Alex Danvers take her home. She certainly _looks_ like Lena’s type, at the moment; all pushed-back hair and confident military swagger.

It’s only a second later that Alex’s actual words register in her mind. She feels another spike of panic. She’s been feeling that a lot, recently. “I’m sorry?”

“Your flask.” Alex pulls the small, stainless steel container from her back pocket. Lena’s heart is lodged somewhere between her chest and her throat, and it doesn’t feel like it’s beating any more. “Took it from your purse before Kara—” Lena flinches, and Alex corrects course— “before _Supergirl_ could see.”

Lena takes it back from her wordlessly, not knowing what to say.

“A ‘thank you’ might be nice.”

“I didn’t ask you to—”

“You’re welcome. And you’re welcome for not telling her about the day drinking, either.”

Lena’s face flushes red hot. From embarrassment or anger, she can’t tell. “Spying on me now, Agent Danvers?”

Alex scoffs. “Hardly.” She grabs the chart from the end of Lena’s bed and hands it over with a bored expression on her face. “Supergirl thought you may have inhaled something poisonous. I ran a tox screen when you got here. Your BAC was .073. Little high for a Thursday morning, don’t you think?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Well you’re welcome, either way. Your tox screen came back negative, in case you were wondering, for everything but the alcohol. Is that why you fainted?”

Rage burns white hot, flashing down her neck. How _dare_ she insinuate— “I’m sure you don’t mean to imply that I _passed out from drinking at 11 am,_ Agent Danvers.”

“Just trying to make sure it won’t happen again.”

Lena’s teeth feel like they might crack in her mouth from the pressure of being clenched together. She doesn’t think she’s ever been more insulted. “It won’t.” Alex just nods at her, looking sceptical. Lena does _not_ need her judgment; not after the morning she’s had. “Can someone in this godforsaken building take me back to my office?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Apparently I was snatched off the street so I don’t have my car.”

“Don’t you have a driver you can call?”

Lena just stares at her. “You _want_ me to call my driver to your secret government alien-catching facility in the middle of the desert?”

Alex pauses for a moment, and considers. “Guess you have a point. You want to fly, or—?”

Lena’s stomach churns. “Drive,” she says, shaking her head. She rests her palms flat against her stomach, like the pressure will be enough to quell the nausea. “Drive. I’d like to drive.”

Alex nods, hands folded behind her back. “I’ll arrange an agent to take you back to work. Unless you’d rather go home, maybe rest for a few—”

“I assure you that won’t be necessary. Just a ride home. Please.” The way she says ‘please’ makes it abundantly clear that she’s not asking, she’s demanding. Apparently even Alex knows when she needs to stop pushing.

“I’ll have a car ready in ten.”

“Make it five.”

Alex’s eye twitches. It’s the only tell she shows. “Right away, Ms. Luthor.”

________________

Even with the somewhat-unpleasant realization that her little drinking problem might be less ‘little’ and more of an _actual_ ‘problem’, at this point she’s in too deep. She’s gotten too used to her daily nightcaps, too used to the few drinks she orders at lunch. She’s gotten too used to her dreamless nights, and she’s terrified of what she might see if they stop.

She’d also be the first to note that it isn’t entirely her fault, either. The drinking, that is. She very much accepts the scientific evidence that addiction has a large genetic component to it, and Lionel had certainly had his fair share of brushes with substance abuse. (More than brushes, really.) Maybe it had never been diagnosed, and it _certainly_ had never been discussed amongst the family, but Lena can’t remember a time when Lionel hadn’t had a glass of some expensive, dark-coloured liquor in his hand. Not one moment of her childhood. Not birthdays, not holidays, not incredibly uncomfortable family dinners. She thinks that, if she has a drinking problem, she must have inherited it; drinking as a learned strategy, as a learned behaviour. (Though she must grudgingly admit that Lex, by contrast, has never touched the stuff, has hardly had a sip of alcohol his entire life. He always preferred other vices — women, gambling, money laundering, mass murder.)

It also doesn’t help that every time she sees Supergirl anywhere (on TV or in some magazine, trending on Twitter or in statue form, a few times zipping by above her head as Lena walks from her office to her car, her driver Tony already waiting with the door propped open and a fully-stocked bar in the backseat) it makes her heart stop beating, her palms start sweating, and a nervous, sick feeling overtake her.

Her hands shake as she pours herself another drink, her stomach burning with shame until she can swallow it down. After that, she feels very little.

________________

“And how did the meeting with the investors from GRT go?” Lena asks as she slides her letter opener along the crease of an interdepartmental memo. Her eyes scan it quickly, looking for anything concerning, but seeing nothing more than the standard communication between R&D and Production, she puts it to the side.

Sam flips through her small moleskin notebook, scanning a few pages. “Positive, I think. Management wants to invest in our comms system but the board is nervous about partnering with L-Corp while the Alien Amnesty fight is going on.”

“Understandable,” Lena says as she skims over an invoice from HANC. She passes the bill to Sam, who slides it under her notebook for later. “You reiterated our position on the bill?”

Sam nods. “Of course. But taking _any_ side in this fight is going to be controversial. GRT is hoping to stay non-partisan on the whole thing, hope that it blows over before they’re asked to publicly comment. They think a partnership with L-Corp could be construed as taking a pro-alien stance which could alienate some of their clients.” Sam pulls a face. “No pun intended.”

Lena hums. “And how did you respond to their cowardice?”

“I offered them 15% return on investment instead of 10. And I think we’ll have a contract signed by the end of the week.”

“Great work, Sam.”

“Thanks. And I was looking through the budgetary spreadsheets for this quarter. We’re already 83% of the way to our production goal, so way ahead of schedule. And costs are down 7%.”

“So everything’s running smoothly.”

“Yup. The board should be pleased.”

Lena rolls her eyes as she tosses a few magazines into the trash. She doesn’t even bother glancing at the cover of _CatCo._ “They’re _never_ pleased. Even with the profit margin increasing, they always think it could be increasing _more._ It did when Lex was in charge.”

Sam’s nose scrunches up, and Lena is struck by how remarkable her resemblance to her daughter really is. “Lex was using L-Corp money to manufacture illegal weapons and sell them at a huge mark-up to hostile foreign powers.”

“Yes, but _Mr. Richter’s_ share of the profits was higher then than it is now, as he _loves_ to remind me.”

Sam shakes her head. “Men and wealth.”

“A corrupt combination, yes.” Lena frowns down at the pile of mail in front of her. There’s one envelope that looks curious; like a standard envelope one might purchase for personal use, not a bank statement or anything official. It has the return address of one of Lena’s subsidiary companies, so Lena frowns at it before slicing it open with her letter opener.

Immediately upon unfolding the paper, she knows something is wrong. It’s a single sheet but it’s full front and back with shaky, cramped writing. Lena thinks of the scene in _The Shining,_ thinks _All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy_.

Her eyes skim over the letter, landing quickly on phrases before jumping to new ones.

> _Species Traitor_
> 
> _alien fucking WHORE_
> 
> _deserve to DIE you BITCH_
> 
> _worthless piece of scum_
> 
> _KILL YOURSELF!_

“Lena?” Sam says loudly and Lena blinks up at her. Sam looks like she’s been saying her name for quite a while. “What is that?” she asks, eyes glued to the piece of paper in Lena’s hands. Lena holds it out to her wordlessly. Sam takes the letter from her with just the tips of her fingers, like she doesn’t want to touch it. Like she already knows, before she reads it, exactly what it’s going to say.

Sam curses under her breath. “Jesus,” she mutters, and then, louder, she calls, “Jess!”

Lena’s assistant scurries into the room with her tablet in hand. “Yes, Ms. Arias?”

Sam brandishes the letter at her. “What the hell is this doing here? I thought we had a system to filter this shit out.”

Jess stares at the letter, going a little pale. “We-we do. I’m sorry, Ms. Luthor, someone must have made a mistake during screening—”

“Fire whoever was on screening this morning,” Sam says with a glower.

Jess swallows thickly. “Yes, ma’am. Right away.”

“No,” Lena stops her as she turns towards the door. “No, don’t. It’s alright. It was just a harmless mistake; no one needs to lose their job over it.”

Sam doesn’t look like she believes her. “Are you sure?” she asks quietly, a question meant for Lena’s ears only.

Lena doesn’t answer her. “How many letters like this do we get?” she asks Jess.

Jess bites her lip, her eyes flicking between Sam and Lena. Lena’s under the distinct impression that this is something the two of them (perhaps many, _many_ more people inside her company) have chosen to keep her in the dark about. Lena doesn’t know how she feels about that; if she should be thankful for their concern or angry about the concealment. She settles for something in the middle, torn.

Jess too looks torn. Like she’s not sure who to defer to, which orders to follow — the ones Sam’s clearly already given her, or the one Lena’s just posed directly to her.

Eventually, she sides with Lena. She glances down at her tablet, though the screen is dark, so she isn’t looking at anything. “A few hundred,” she says quietly, and if Lena weren’t already sitting down she’s sure she’d fall right over.

She grips her desk tightly. Her vision is going dark around the edges. “A few hundred a _day?_ ” She can hardly believe it.

Jess nods. “Most of them are fairly obvious. Weird envelopes, no return address, misspelling your name or the company name, that sort of thing. We have a team of people go through each letter we decide to discard, just in case. They’re almost entirely harmless, just people with too much time on their hands wanting a little bit of attention. But if any seem like legitimate threats, we pass them over to the government for investigation.”

Lena feels strangely weightless; unmoored. “Increase the salaries of the team in charge of screenings,” she says with unfocused vision. “Fifteen percent.”

Jess’s eyes widen a little but otherwise she doesn’t let on that this is an unusual request. “Of course, Ms. Luthor. Will that be all?”

Lena nods. Her eyes flick down to the letter in Jess’s hands and she adds, “Burn that, too.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Jess leaves them (her?) alone again but Lena can hardly tell. She sits at her desk for what could be a very long while or a very short while; it’s difficult to say. Everything fades from her focus and her attention so slowly that she doesn’t notice it at first. It’s a strange feeling. Lena looks down at her hands and wiggles her fingers, just to test that she still has control over them. She does, so she stands and walks to the other side of the room. Someone who might be Sam might be talking to her, but Lena can’t hear what she’s saying. It’s like she’s in a dream. Nothing around her feels real, though logically she knows exactly where she is and what’s happening. It’s almost like she’s outside of herself, watching her life happen around her. The air around her seems to tremble, and the floor feels like it might be vibrating or it might be tipping, and Lena is dizzy with the feeling for a few terrifying moments that don’t actually feel that terrifying.

Suddenly Sam is behind her, a hand pressing soft grounding weight at the base of Lena’s spine. It takes a few more long moments for the fog to lift, and when it does Lena turns to face her, blinking slowly. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice a pale imitation of normalcy. She has the distinct impression that she’s just missed something important, but she can’t think what it might be. “I must have drifted off for a minute. What were you saying?”

Sam is looking at her like Lena’s just stripped off all her clothes and run around the room: confused, worried, and a little scared. “Lena, are you alright?”

“Quite. I just needed a moment.”

“You didn’t speak for nearly fifteen minutes.”

Huh. That doesn’t sound right. “Was it that long?”

“Lena, have you been feeling alright, recently? You aren’t… are you sick? Dizzy, headaches, memory loss—”

Lena waves her off. “I’m quite alright. Just a strange lapse in concentration.” She reaches for a drink almost without thinking, and is vaguely surprised to realize her hands are trembling and her breath is coming in short, pained gasps. Her chest feels tight, like her heart can’t pump properly. She wonders for a brief moment if she’s about to die, and then for an even briefer moment wonders why that thought doesn’t alarm her more.

“Lena,” Sam is properly distressed now, and she takes the glass from Lena’s hand (when did she pick that up? when did she fill it?) before she can take a sip. She turns her around to face her, her eyes darting wildly around Lena’s face, trying to read some truth in her expression that Lena herself doesn’t even know she’s hiding. She wants to shy away from the attention — she’s never enjoyed being peered at like she’s a science experiment — but Sam’s hands are firm on her cheeks, and she doesn’t let her move.

“You’re having a panic attack.” Sam’s voice sounds like it’s coming from under water.

Lena shakes her head, but her whole body is moving slowly. So slowly. She feels like she’s in a dream, a nightmare where she’s being chased but she can’t seem to make her limbs move fast enough to get away. Her feet are buried in thick mud, her legs weighted down with lead. She tries to lift her arms but they aren’t listening to her brain and her shoulders are tight and her neck doesn’t feel like it can support the weight of her head.

“Lena.” Sam’s voice again, distant again.

“I’m fine, Sam,” she manages to say through a mouth that feels like a desert, with a tongue that feels thick and clumsy and covered in sandpaper. “Take the day off, spend it with Ruby.”

Sam’s speaking to her but Lena can’t quite hear. “—crazy? I’m not leaving you like this.”

But Lena just shakes her head. She needn’t worry. Sam can leave. She’ll be okay. She will. She’ll manage. She always does.

She always does.

She always does.

She always does.

________________

**Author's Note:**

> Next time in Chapter 2: 'Restoration’:
> 
> _Lena dreams of water._
> 
> Follow me on [ tumblr. ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)


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